disability Flashcards
medical model
disability - personal tragedy - disabled deserve our pity
- inferior - abnormal
- normalisation only through cure
Best - traditionally disability seen in terms of a person’s ability to participate in everyday activities
social model
1980s
- view developed by disabled people - biological disability less important than social disability
Oliver - society which disables physically impaired people - excluded from full participation - stereotypical attitudes
Best - society generates discrimination and exclusion - social constructions of prejudice
marxist views
difficult for disabled people to construct positive identities - unable to work esp in high-status jobs
finkelstein - negative cultural attitudes product of capitalism’s emphasis on work as a source of identity
pre-industrial - this view didnt exist: able-bodied and disabled should be segregated and treated differently
industrialisation - responsible for dramatic shift in cultural attitudes
feminist views
difficult for disabled women to construct positive identities - not viewed as sexually attractive
however - interactionists - marxists and feminist view that disabled are passive - goffman’s third strategy of becoming involved in identity politics suggests disabled people are able to construct resistant identities
interactionist views
disability - social construct - label applied to group of people who are identified by society in particular way
goffman - stigmatised identity - derogatory names, media images, different medical treatment, barriers in employment and constructed dependency
scott - study of blind people - internalise expert’s view of themselves - blind personality
stigma management - hide stigma, admit stigma try to relive tension that arises in interactions, protest against stigma
postmodernist views
disabled people are free to express themselves in more ways than past due to new technology eg second long
however - structural theorists - postmodernists fail to acknowledge the significant impact of structural inequalities that technology cannot compensate for
disability as a social construct
most of uk population have some form of impairment eg glasses
not labelled as disabled because society does not define these as a problem
disabled identity and independence
Marsh and Keating - no one is independent - in modern societies we are interdependent
why some social mobility aids eg wheelchairs have negative social reaction
learned helplessness
Watson - stereotypical perceptions of disabled people about dependency and helplessness affect how disabled people perceive themselves and abilities - self fulfilling prophecy
scott - looked at interactions between medical professionals and blind people - blind personality and learned helplessness
stereotypes and media representations
negative
- longmore - represented as monsters, dependent on others, objects of pity
- cumberbatch and negrine - rarely present them as a person and individual - focus on disability
wood - lack of disabled people employed in media - no one challenging stereotypical views - changing eg BBC bodyguard
positive
- recent changes - Paralympics in london
prejudice and discrimination of disabled
master status - dominant label that overrides all other aspects of that person’s identity
- multiple identities - disabled people may not identify through disability
- hard for people to see the real ‘me’
- disabled people find themselves segregated
- prejudice translated into discrimination eg employment
- brown - people with disabilities seen as innocents or perverts
disabled identity and resistance
social model - more positive representations of disabled people should be promoted - focusing on independence, choice
Antie - children with disabilities do not qualitatively differ in how they see disabilities compared to children without disabilities
Olney and Kim - disabled people felt more positive about self-image
disabled identity in contemporary society
prejudice and discrimination still present
physical and biological factors eg pain can affect experience of social life
societal expectations are becoming less rigid
positive
social model
interactionism
media representation changes
socialisation
resisting label
negative
medical model
marxism
feminism
interacionism
postmodernism
media representations